November 8, 2005

Daniel Solove is keeping track of all the lawprof bloggers -- at least the ones who want to be kept track of: Three of the five Wisconsin lawprof bloggers aren't on his list, as he notes here. Maybe the three he doesn't include would fall short of his standard for what makes something a lawprof blog:

There are a few blogs by law professors that I haven’t added to the census, as these are blogs solely about personal hobbies or experiences without connections to the law or the life of law professors. I discussed my decision not to include these blogs here. ... Professor Stephen Bainbridge has a blog about wine, but I am not listing it because it has no legal themes at all. But it’s a neat blog nonetheless! Anyway, there is no strong litmus test for inclusion, just at a minimum some posts about issues relating to law, academics, politics, or the life of law professors, law students, or lawyers.

This is an especially interesting question for me as I'm going to write a paper for a blogger conference about the value of doing a lawprof blogging that's not confined to law subjects. There's something of a trend toward staying very on-topic as a lawprof blogger. I'm (obviously) big on the countertrend.

Solove is taking special interest in the gender imbalance among lawprof bloggers:

Of the bloggers, 41 are female and 141 are male. There are 13 new female bloggers and 39 new male bloggers [in the last 5 months]. Female bloggers increased by 46% and male bloggers increased by 38%.

Things I'd count if I had the time right now: percentages of males and females doing group blogs versus solo blogs; the percentages of males and females doing focused law blogs versus multi-topic blogs. And it would be nice to know the male/female balance among lawprof bloggers who don't talk about law at all! I'd also like to know whether the new bloggers are disproportionately going into group blogging opposed to solo blogging and focused law-blogging as opposed to multi-topic blogging.

And I don't like the term "multi-topic blogging." I need some time to think up a better term than that one, which seems to connote an identifiable set of topics as opposed to an approach to blogging that that lets you talk about whatever strikes you as worth writing about at any given moment of your waking life. I thought of "well-rounded blogging," but I think that's has a silly self-promoting ring.

"Broad-blogging"? (Well, now that I think about it, this one might contain an inadvertent pun, I suppose, if the blogger is female, as you are. Originally I was thinking of broad (range) as opposed to narrow.)

"Life-blogger"?

Some word that implies stream of consciousness in some way? Or the concept of "in the moment" or constantly, in a sense, brainstorming?

A number your other commenters would be better at this--Victoria or Pastor Jeff and so forth. I hope they see this and join in: that would be fun.

Griffin: If someone put together a moderate BlogAds group, I'd be happy to join. I was asked to join that one and I like to make money from my writing. That button takes you to a place to buy ads from a lot of sites grouped together under that umbrella. It doesn't imply that I only want conservative ads. I'd be happy to take ads for liberal causes of all sorts. I've never rejected an ad.

Obviously, almost every type of blog has cross-over. For example, Volokh.com is mostly vocational (law), with a healthy side of general interest. And I'd describe Althouse as the exact opposite: general interest with a side of law vocation. I find both to be very enjoyable and occasionally educational.

I tend to avoid the single-minded blogs (kos & LGF, to name two)because after awhile you've heard everything they have to say.

I think what griffin d. politico dog is trying to say is that he wants to put his money where his imagination is and actually buy and ad on your blog, acting as a ballast to keep you properly balanced and moderate. Yea, that's what he meant.

Recently I downloaded a chat software called Gaim, which allows me to see all my "friends" (and I use that term ever loosely) online, whether they are on AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, or MSN messengers. (Trillian software does this too, but with a lot more bloat). These softwares are often called Universal Chat clients.

When your paper is finished, I hope you post your thoughts about "the value of doing lawprof blogging that's not confined to law subjects." From a purely stylistic point of view, weblogs that are too narrowly focused on one topic deprive readers of a chance to learn something about the blogger's personality. Not only can this make a weblog dull, but it can also pose a barrier for readers who want a little something more to enable them to trust the author who's providing the information or opinion they're reading. No matter how narrow the focus of a weblog, I think even a little "wide-angle blogging" goes a long way in engaging readers and building an audience for the weblog's author.

It's such a pity that this only seems to include American law prof blogs - there are some pretty good European blogs by law lecturers as well, although it doesn't seem to have taken hold here to nearly the same degree... (boom boom...)